Railway-track construction



W. H. KIRKBRIDE RAILWAY TRACK CONSTRUCTION April 14, 1931-.

Filed Aug. 4, 1930 i INVENTORY A; mMzu'a/L 400/7! wad A TTORNE YS.

Patented Apr. 14, 1931 UNITED STATES WALTER H. KIRKBRIDE, OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA RAILWAY-TRACK CONSTRUCTION Application filed August 4, 1930. Serial No. 472,897.

My invention relates to that feature of railway-track construction which concerns the connection of the adjacent ends of the aligned rails; and it consists primarily in the employment and relative distribution of two kinds of joints, the'nature of which may, in the first instance, be distinguished one from the other, -by the comprehensive expressions permanent as applied to one, and detachable as applied to the other, these terms being understood in their common acceptation, signifying relativity of purpose and conven ience.

The invention also consists, in its more lim- 1 ited aspect, of the novel relativedistrib'ution of said joints, as well as in such specific features as are found best ada ted to the end sought; which end may be briefly stated to be reduction of expense of maintenance by minimizing wear at joints.

The nature of my said invention and the manner in which it is applied in track-construction will be ascertained in and by the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which the improvement is illustrated in its preferred form, though it is to be understood that changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention as. de

fined by the claims hereunto appended.

In the drawings, Fig. I is a plan View, broproved construction is embodied.

Fig. 2 is a plan view, enlarged, showing apermanent joint between the adjacent ends of aligned rails.

' Fig. 3 is a plan view, enlarged, showing the adjacent ends of two railssepaTated later-' ally for the sake of illustration, to which said ends the members of a detachable joint are fitted, ready to be completed when the two rails are aligned.

Referring to Fig. 1, the numeral 1 indicates the cross-ties, and 2 are the rails of a railway track At A are indicated the detachable joints, andat B are indicated the permanent joints. These are distributed in each line of rails of the track alternately,

and this order in one rail line is in staggered 59 relation to a similar order in the other rail ken, of a railway-track in which my im-' custom, necessarily in staggered relation.

- By this distribution of these two kinds of joints, it will be seen that one desirable result is reached, to Wit, that even though two lengths of rail are permanently connected and must thereafter, in maintenance work, be handled at a unit, such contingency is not prohibitive, for the track may still be taken apart by separating its permanently joined units at the detachable joints. And, more over, as there is no jointwear at the permanent joints, the expense of maintenance is minimized in proportion to the number of said permanent joints, which in itself represents a one-half saving.

These permanent joints may be of any suitable nature; in practise, some form of welded joint. I have indicated such a joint in Fig. 2, in which the joint bars or fish-plates 3, which may be of any approved type, are welded below to the rail base at 4, and are weldedunder the head of the rail at 5, the weld crossing the line between the adjacent rail ends, and the heads of said rail ends are themselves welded together at 6. Anylother form of welded joint may be used, since the sole requirement is permanency inthe sense herein used.

The detachable joints A are, however, of special character, adapted for a further minimizing of maintenance expense. This will become apparent by reference to Fig. 3 in which the nature of this joint is illustrated. One of the joint bars or fish plates 7, which bars or plates may be of any suitable type, is permanently connected for half its length by welds suitably disposed, as, for example, along lines such as 8 and 9, to one of the rails, and the other bar or plate is similarly welded to the other rail. The other half of each bar or plate, projecting from its rail is detachably' connected with the other rail by bolts 10. Thus the two rails can be readil separated, and since the welded half of eac bar or plate is not subject to wear, the expense of maintenance is confined to the bolted half. The saving, at this point, represents another quarter, the total minimizing being a saving of three fourths as compared with practise.

I claim 1. In railway-track construction, the combination of alternating permanent, and de tachable rail-joints.

2. In railway-track construction, the combination of spaced parallel lines of rail; and alternating permanent, and detachable railjoints, the alternation in one rail line being instaggered relation to that of the other rail line.

3. In railway-track construction the combination of alternating fully permanent railjoints with detachable partially permanent rail-joints.

4. In railway-track construction, the combination of permanent rail joints, with other rail joints alternating therewith and comprisin a pair of joint-members crossing the line 0% rail separation, one portion of each member being permanently united to its respective rail and its other portion detachably connected with the other rail.

'5. In railway-track construction, a rail-- joint-comprising a pair of joint members crossing the line of rail separation on opposite sides, one portion of each member being permanently united to its respective rail and its other portion detachably connected with the other rail.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification. v

WALTER H. KIRKBRIDE. 

